How to play:
A guide to slowpitch softball
Basic Game > Playing Area > Defensive Team > Pitching > Batting > Running the Bases
Slowpitch Softball is played by two teams of ten players each. The teams take it in turns to bat and field. The batting team is called the OFFENSIVE team and the fielding team is called the DEFENSIVE team.
Most Slowpitch Softball is played by mixed teams, where men and women play together, usually in a 5:5 ratio. However, this ratio sometimes varies, and Slowpitch is sometimes played by single-sex teams as well.
The basics of Softball are very simple. One player, the PITCHER, pitches the ball to a BATTER who hits it and runs around as many bases as possible before the ball is retrieved and returned under control by the defensive team. The aim of the game is to score more RUNS than the opposition, and a run is scored when a player on the batting team advances successfully around all three bases and back to the home base (called HOME PLATE) from whence he/she started.
Unless you hit the ball so far that you can run around all the bases before it's returned (a HOME RUN), you will have to stop at one or more bases on your way around and wait for the next batter to hit the ball so you can advance further.
Meanwhile, the defensive team is trying to get batters and base runners OUT, either by catching balls hit in the air, or in various other ways we'll get to later. As soon as three players on the offensive team have made outs, the two teams switch: The defensive team comes in to bat and the batting team goes out to the field to defend.
An inning is completed when each team has batted, and a full game consists of seven innings, usually taking between 60 and 90 minutes to play. Players bat in a prearranged order (in mixed games with a 5:5 ratio, men and women bat alternately). After the last batter in the order has hit, the first batter comes up again. If the final out in an inning is made by, say, the fourth batter in the order, then the fifth batter will be the first to hit when the team comes in to bat again. Batters keep their place in the batting order even if they were out last time they batted.